The organizers of the Road to Change tour have visited over 50 cities in an effort to register and mobilize voters ahead of the 2018 midterm elections — and to build a coalition of youth in communities affected by gun violence.

The reopening of Yosemite Valley, by far the most heavily touristed area of the park, came as firefighters continued to make slow, steady progress containing the last hot spots of the Ferguson Fire, which erupted July 13 at the edge of Yosemite. The blaze, one of the largest of dozens that have burned across California this summer, has charred nearly 97,000 acres around the park's northwestern corner, but fire crews have carved containment lines around 86 percent of its perimeter. The road into Yosemite Valley was reopened on Tuesday for the first time since July 25, along with two highways into the park.

SEATTLE (AP) — U.S. investigators are working to find out how an airline employee stole an empty commercial airplane from the main airport serving Seattle and crashed into a small island after being chased by military jets.

President Nicolas Maduro said Monday that some of the world's cheapest petrol that Venezuelan drivers enjoy will soon be sold at world market prices to combat rampant smuggling. "Gasoline must be sold at an international price to stop smuggling to Colombia and the Caribbean," Maduro said in a televised address. Venezuela, like most oil producing countries, has for decades subsidised fuel as a benefit to consumers. But its fuel prices have remained nearly flat for years despite hyperinflation that the International Monetary Fund has projected would reach 1 million per cent this year. That means that for the price of a cup of coffee, a driver can now fill the tank of a small SUV nearly 9,000 times. Recently, the average price of a coffee with milk was 2.2 million bolivars, or about 50 cents, local media has reported. Smugglers do brisk business reselling fuel in neighboring countries. Supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro take part in a rally in Caracas on Monday Credit: FEDERICO PARRA/AFP Maduro said the government would still provide "direct subsidies" to citizens holding the "fatherland card," a state-issued identification card that the government uses to provide bonuses and track use of social services. He said the subsidy was only available to those who registered their cars in a vehicle census being conducted by the state.

Stephen Miller, the architect of some of Trump’s most controversial anti-immigration policies, has been assailed by critics who are quick to point out that Miller himself is a grandchild of refugees. Now Miller’s own uncle is joining the outcry.

A 3-year-old boy found buried at a New Mexico desert compound died in a ritual to "cast out demonic spirits," but his extended family believed he would "return as Jesus" to identify "corrupt" targets for them to attack, prosecutors said in court on Monday. Prosecutors' account of an exorcism-like ritual, allegations of weapons training for children and references to martyrdom and conspiracy were aimed at persuading a judge to deny bond for the five adults charged with child abuse in the case. Defense attorneys said prosecutors sought to criminalize their clients for being African-Americans of Muslim faith.

Turkey’s president escalated tensions with the US on Tuesday after calling for a boycott of American electronics, amid reports that diplomatic talks have stalled over the issue of a detained pastor. Showing no signs of backing down in a standoff with President Donald Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested that Ankara would stop buying US-made iPhones and buy Korean or Turkish-made models instead. "If they have the iPhone, there is Samsung elsewhere. We have Vestel," he said, renewing calls for Turks to convert their dollars to lira as the Turkish currency began to rally on Tuesday morning. However, financial experts questioned whether such a move would have much of an effect given Turkey’s current purchasing power. Some even pointed to the irony of Mr Erdogan lashing out at American tech companies. The president fended off a coup attempt two years ago by appealing to his supporters via FaceTime, the Apple video chat app. The country’s finance chief, Mr Erdogan’s son-in-law, is due to address foreign investors later on Tuesday, in an attempt to quell growing concerns. Andrew Brunson: The evangelical US pastor at the heart of the Turkey crisis Talks between the two Nato countries seem to have been frozen until Turkey releases American evangelical pastor Andrew Brunson, who stands accused by Ankara of espionage and terrorism related to the 2016 putsch. John Bolton, White House National Security Adviser, told Turkey’s Ambassador Serdar Kilic in Washington on Monday that there was nothing further to discuss until Mr Brunson was freed. The US had believed it had agreed a swap deal with Turkey during a Nato summit in July, where Mr Brunson would be released in return for a Turkish actress held by Israel over links to Hamas. Turkish citizens look at a board showing foreign currency rates inside a currency exchange shop in Ankara Credit: AP Actress Ebru Özkan was released the next day, while the pastor was moved from prison to house arrest. Mr Brunson’s lawyer Ismail Cem Halavurt on Tuesday appealed again to a Turkish court to release him and lift his travel ban. He said the court had up to seven days to decide. Mr Brunson, who faces up to 35 years in jail if found guilty, denies the charges. The lira started to stage a recovery on Tuesday following its dramatic two-day collapse. After plunging to record lows yesterday, the currency clawed back as much as 9.1 per cent, although it slipped again after Mr Erdogan's remarks on consumer goods. The earlier rebound was pinned on local investors attempting to cash in on the lira slide by selling their dollars. Retail investors in Turkey are understood to have sold $50m (£39m) to $60m in foreign currency with the jump in the lira exaggerated by thin trading volumes, according to Bloomberg. Markets were also somewhat soothed by Turkey’s central bank loosening cash buffer requirements for the country’s banks and its finance minister setting up a call with investors. Despite the lira’s rally, it has still lost 42 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2018.

The biggest race as Connecticut residents goes to the polls for Tuesday's primaries is for the governor's office. Republicans believe they have a good chance of winning it back after losing control in 2010. Control of the narrowly divided General Assembly is also in play, especially the state Senate, now equally split between Democrats and Republicans.

Relatives and neighbors say things began to go downhill for Lucas Morton, 39, shortly after he arrived in this vast alpine valley about 40 miles (64 km) north of Taos in a white moving van last December. The families set up home on a 10-acre plot of land that was near to one owned by Morton, a carpenter, but which actually belonged to U.S. Army veteran Jason Badger. The vet filed a court complaint but the Morton and Wahhaj families stayed on the land.

New York (AFP) - Turkey's troubled lira tumbled Monday to fresh record lows against the euro and dollar, piling pressure on stock markets on fears the country's crisis could spill over into the world economy.

A three-year-old boy found buried at a New Mexico desert compound died in a ritual to "cast out demonic spirits," but his extended family believed he would "return as Jesus" to identify "corrupt" targets for them to attack, prosecutors said in court on Monday. Prosecutors' account of an exorcism-like ritual, allegations of weapons training for children and references to martyrdom and conspiracy were aimed at persuading a judge to deny bond for the five adults charged with child abuse in the case. However, state District Judge Sarah Backus said at the end of the four-hour detention hearing she remained unconvinced that the defendants posed a danger to the community and set bail at $20,000 for each of them. "The state alleges that there was a big plan afoot," Backus said in rendering her decision. "But the state hasn't shown to my satisfaction, in clear and convincing evidence, what that plan was." Defence attorneys said prosecutors sought to criminalise their clients for being African-Americans of Muslim faith. "If these people were white and Christian, nobody would bat an eye over the idea of faith healing, or praying over a body or touching a body and quoting scripture," defence lawyer Thomas Clark told reporters after the hearing. "But when black Muslims do it, there seems to be something nefarious, something evil." Defendants, from left, Hujrah Wahhaj, Lucas Morton, Siraj Wahhaj and Subbannah Wahhaj enter district court in Taos, New Mexico, on Monday Credit: Albuquerque Journal Under terms of the judge's order, four defendants were expected to be placed under house arrest with electronic ankle bracelets to ensure they remain within Taos County for the duration of the case. The five suspects, who had established a communal living arrangement with their children in the high-desert compound, have been in custody since authorities raided their ramshackle homestead north of Taos 10 days ago. The two men and three women are all related as siblings or by marriage. Three are the adult children of a prominent New York City Muslim cleric who is himself the biological grandfather of nine of the children involved. The principal suspect, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 39, has also been charged with abducting his severely ill three-year-old son, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, from the Atlanta home of the boy's mother in December. Clark said Ibn Wahhaj would remain in custody due to a fugitive warrant against him in Georgia stemming from the cross-country manhunt that led investigators to the New Mexico compound. The body of a young boy believed to be his son was found in a tunnel at the site three days after the raid. No charges have been filed in connection with the death. An aerial view of a makeshift compound is seen in the desert area of Amalia Credit: Brian Skoloff/AP For now, the thrust of the government's case remains 11 counts of felony child abuse filed against each of the defendants - Ibn Wahhaj and his wife, Jany Leveille, along with his brother-in-law and sister - Lucas Morton and Subhannah Wahhaj - and a second sister, Hujrah Wahhaj. The 11 children, ranging from one to 15 years old and described by authorities as starving and ragged when they were found, were placed in protective custody after the August 3 raid. According to prosecutors' presentation on Monday, some of the children were given weapons training to defend the compound against a possible raid by law enforcement. However, the government said there was more to it than that. Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Travis Taylor testified that the 15-year-old son of Ibn Wahhaj recounted one of the adults telling him the spirit of the dead three-year-old would return "as Jesus" to direct the group in carrying out violent attacks. Taylor said prospective targets would include "the financial system, law enforcement, the education system." Prosecutor John Lovelace said the three-year-old boy died during "a religious ritual" intended to "cast out demonic spirits." Abdul-Ghani stopped breathing, lost consciousness and died during a ceremony in which his father put his hand on the boy's head and recited verses from the Koran, Taylor testified, citing interviews with Ibn Wahhaj's 15-year-old and 13-year-old sons. Prosecutors said in court documents last week that all five defendants were giving firearms instruction to the children "in furtherance of a conspiracy to commit school shootings." Authorities acknowledged in court on Monday that police had previously encountered Ibn Wahhaj, Leveille and seven of the children in December when they were involved in a traffic accident in Alabama. Lovelace said police at the time found weapons and ammunition in the vehicle. Authorities let the group go after Ibn Wahhaj explained he was licensed to carry the guns as a private security agent and that he and the others were en route to New Mexicofor a camping trip.

PAYSON, Utah (AP) — A Utah man flew a small plane into his own house early Monday just hours after he had been arrested for assaulting his wife in a nearby canyon where the couple went to talk over their problems, authorities said.

Cooler temperatures have aided firefighters as they begin to turn the tables on a large wildfire that has torn across Southern California. The Holy Fire was 41 per cent contained by Sunday afternoon after burning over 35.5 square miles of dry timber and brush at Cleveland National Forest, around 100 miles southeast of Los Angeles. “The weather out here in California seems to be cooling down today and over the next couple days, and that should hopefully help firefighters get even more containment,” said Lynne Tolmachoff, of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

For 17 days, a southern resident killer whale (SRKW) named J35, but better known as Tahlequah, carried her deceased baby for more than 1,000 miles. The orca's unusually long spell of grieving came to an end on Saturday, when Tahlequah was spotted in the Haro Strait off Victoria, British Columbia, chasing a school of salmon without her newborn. SEE ALSO: New dolphin-whale hybrid sea creature is the spawn of an unholy union "Her tour of grief is now over and her behavior is remarkably frisky," the Center for Whale Research (CWR) explained in a blog post online. August 11, 2018 J35 update: "The ordeal of J35 carrying her dead calf for at least seventeen days and 1,000 miles is now over, thank goodness." - Ken Balcomb, Center for Whale Researchhttps://t.co/kQpA4WWbmg pic.twitter.com/cQIN13HgN6 — Whale Research (@CWROrcas) August 12, 2018 The CWR added that the baby's carcass has probably sunk to the bottom of the Salish Sea, meaning that researchers may not get a chance to examine it. On Jul. 24, Tahlequah's baby orca died shortly after birth, in what has been a common story for the southern resident killer whale population. Over the last two decades, 75 percent of SRKW newborns failed to survive. The last successful birth was in 2015, when two calves were born. In the hours, then days after the death, Tahlequah was spotted trying to keep her baby's head above the water's surface, reluctant to leave the body behind. "That's not unprecedented, but it’s the longest one that I’ve personally witnessed," Ken Balcomb, CWR's founder and principal investigator, told
The Washington Post. These orcas are facing a real threat of extinction, with no successful pregnancies in the last three years. At just 75 whales, the population is at its lowest in 30 years. The SRKW's decline is linked to the reduction in population of its primary food source, Chinook salmon. Canada's government announced in May it would cut the allowable catch of Chinook by up to 35 percent to help protect the orca. WATCH: This tiny robotic spider might one day perform surgeries inside your body

Much of the Turkish lira's plight may be homegrown, but it shares some key vulnerabilities with other emerging countries whose currencies are now also plunging as fear of contagion spreads, analysts say. South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Russia have all seen their currencies slip over the past week because, like Turkey, they remain heavily dependent on foreign capital, especially the dollar. "This is a typical 'flight to quality' move from foreign investors out of emerging markets to safer, developed countries," Agathe Demarais, lead Turkey analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told AFP.

As its final witness on Monday, the prosecution recalled a Treasury Department agent who testified that Manafort's consulting companies did not disclose their foreign bank accounts, as is required by law, in addition to him failing to do so personally. Judge T.S. Ellis said he would talk to Manafort on Tuesday about whether he wanted to take the stand, something that legal experts say is highly unlikely. Manafort's lawyers will also tell the court on Tuesday whether they plan to call any witnesses.

A widely-condemned white nationalist rally in Washington drew fewer than two dozen supporters, and was drowned out by thousands of counter-protesters chanting "Nazis go home" and "No KKK in the USA". Organisers of the "Unite the Right 2" rally had obtained a permit for up to 400 far-right demonstrators to gather outside the White House. The event was intended to mark the first anniversary of a similar rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last year when neo-Nazis paraded through the streets and Heather Heyer, a counter-protester, died after a far-right sympathiser ploughed a car into a crowd. Jason Kessler, the organiser of both the Charlottesville and Washington rallies, emerged form an underground train station in the capital carrying US flags and flanked by a handful of supporters. They marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, escorted by police in riot gear. Police escort 'Unite the Right' organiser Jason Kessler and protesters during a far-right rally at Lafayette Park opposite the White House Credit: AFP There had been reports that David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, would speak at the event, but he did not attend. In Lafayette Square, opposite the White House, counter-protesters included masked members of the Antifa anti-fascist group, along with a wide cross-section of Washington residents. Jason Kessler, the organizer of the white rights protest, center, speaks to members of the media during the Unite the Right 2 rally in Washington, D.C Credit: Bloomberg Mark Williams, 48, a Gulf War military veteran and counter-protester, told The Telegraph: "I believe the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. We killed Nazis before, I don't have a problem with doing it now." He added: "I'm a little old to engage in that. But I'm not surprised so few of them turned up. They were scared, and they should have been." Antifa and counter protestors to a far-right rally march during the Unite the Right 2 Rally in Washington, DC, Credit: AFP Makia Green, of Black Lives Matter, told the counter-rally: "We know from experience that ignoring white nationalism doesn't work." Kessler claimed his event was a "white civil rights rally" and had been about advocating "free speech for everybody". He added: "It was a precedent that had to be set." As the far-right demonstrators left, counter-protesters attempted to block their path with barricades of bamboo and shopping trolleys. Police escorted the far-right group away in vans. Demonstrators opposed to a far-right rally washes the eyes of a friend hit by pepper spray used by police to disperse the crowds Credit: AFP Later, there were some standoffs and minor scuffles between Antifa protesters in body armour and helmets, and police on motorcycles, in streets near the White House. President Donald Trump was away in New Jersey for the weekend. Kessler had been denied a permit to hold a rally in Charlottesville again this year. At a counter-protest there Heather Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, asked the crowd to raise their fists in solidarity, and laid flowers at a memorial. She said the United States had a "huge racial problem" and still "so much healing to do".

BMW Korea last month started recalling 106,000 vehicles with an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) module, which it says caused the recent fires. An average 7,000 cars have been inspected every day but some 27,000 vehicles had not yet been checked by late Monday, the transport ministry said in a press statement, leaving some 20,000 cars to be hit when the measure takes effect midnight Tuesday. Once the ban comes into effect, drivers are forbidden from driving their vehicles unless they are taking them to be tested, the statement said, with a senior official telling Yonhap news agency drivers would be liable in the event of a fire.

Iran unveiled a next generation short-range ballistic missile on Monday and vowed to further boost its capabilities, Iranian media said, at a time of rising tensions with the United States. State broadcaster IRIB said the new Fateh Mobin missile had "successfully passed its tests" and could strike targets on land and sea. "As promised to our dear people, we will not spare any effort to increase the missile capabilities of the country and we will certainly increase our missile power every day," Defence Minister Amir Hatami said, quoted by conservative news agency Tasnim.